Honeywell & Safran made the Sustainia 100 list for its new electric taxiing system for airplanes, which is expected to equip A320 aircrafts with autonomous taxiing technology from gate to runway to save the CO2 equivalent per plane of planting 835 trees or eliminating 717 automobiles.

June 11, 2014

More than 100 people turned out at an event in Jersey City, NJ, Tuesday night to support the Environmental Protection Agency's proposed carbon pollution safeguards.

The gathering at New Jersey City University featured a screening of the popular Showtime documentary "Years of Living Dangerously" and remarks from Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop.

"Jersey City residents turned out in big numbers to hear Mayor Fulop talk about his support for climate action and to show their support for the carbon standard," said Christine Guhl, a Beyond Coal organizer in New Jersey. "This really highlighted the strong support New Jersey residents and students have for cutting carbon pollution."

Last week, the EPA announced the first-ever limits on carbon pollution from existing power plants. The new standard, which is the key component of President Obama's Climate Action Plan, will start cleaning up dangerous air pollution from power plants, the industry that creates the lion's share of carbon pollution in the United States. Carbon pollution is the leading cause of climate disruption, contributing to extreme heat, flooding and superstorms in New Jersey and throughout the nation.

Guhl said the carbon standards are of particular concern to Jersey City residents because the area was hard hit by Superstorm Sandy, is especially vulnerable to storm surges and flooding due to climate disruption, and is home to one of the state's last coal plants."We know first-hand in Jersey City the effects that climate disruption has had on our community and we commend President Obama and the EPA for this important proposal," said Mayor Fulop, pictured above with local activists. “Policies that require these industries to reduce carbon pollution will not only benefit the health and well-being of our residents, they will have lasting impact for generations to come."

A great team of volunteers helped make Tuesday's event such a success, and Guhl highlighted the very hard work of local volunteer leader Christine Wiltanger. "She tirelessly tabled and petitioned and recruited and led other volunteers to do the same. She is champ and we are so lucky to have her on our team."

Guhl says the Jersey City residents and people from around the state are calling on Governor Chris Christie to support EPA's carbon standards. "Last night's attendees have been calling the Governor's office all day to tell him to take action on climate change for New Jersey."The new safeguards will not only protect health and communities nationwide, but also spur innovation and strengthen the economy. Guhl says they will continue to call on officials to take action on climate and invest in clean energy because it will create tens of thousands of local jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars in new investment in New Jersey.

Making up 28 percent of the U.S. vehicle market, California, Oregon, New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Vermont, and Maryland will "drive economies of scale, lowering prices and creating more options for consumers," said Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune in response to the action plan. He continued, "When it comes to fighting climate disruption, EVs are where the rubber hits the road."

The action plan, promoted by a number of government, environmental, and public health groups in the news and social media, reads like a celebration of EV programs already making a difference on the ground. For example:

In Rhode Island all new state vehicle purchases will be electrics or hybrids wherever possible.

But I think this action plan begs some important questions. If we can't put our all into each and every one of the dozens of action items and recommendations, what are the most effective types of programs and strategies that will most rapidly escalate EV sales in the years to come? What are the pieces of low and medium-hanging fruit, and how does that vary by location? What are the most important studies that show what strategies are working best?

The Sierra Club will be evaluating questions like these in the coming months so we can determine how to best scale up our electric vehicles advocacy and outreach work around the country - and in turn work with these eight states and others to successfully implement this exciting ZEV action plan. In the meantime, we’d love to hear from you: What have you found to be the most successful EV programs in your area? What do you think is most needed? What studies do you think best point to important lessons learned in the plug-in electric vehicles market thus far?

May 23, 2014

Many city dwellers don't have cars. Ideally, they rely on their bikes, their feet, and public transit to get around. Certainly that's the best environmental choice.

But what about when they need to go farther, or biking or transit aren't viable options? Some cities and their residents are getting creative about electric cars.

This week in Indianapolis, where the Electric Drive Transportation Association held its annual conference, Mayor Greg Ballard announced a major new electric car sharing program. Other companies, such as Car2Go and Zipcar, have been experimenting with electric car-sharing, but BlueIndy will be the biggest one yet. Set to open within eight months, the program will include up to 500 electric vehicles, 200 service locations, and 1,000 charging stations. It will be run by the Bolloré Group, which currently operates EV car-sharing programs in a number of French cities.

It does matter how the electricity is generated. In Indiana, which relies heavily on coal for its electricity, full battery electric vehicles are at least 37 percent lower in carbon emissions than the average comparable conventional car -- but a bit higher than today's hybrid vehicles. See the Sierra Club's EV Guide and calculate emission comparisons for your own region. As the Midwest shifts away from fossil fuels and toward more renewable sources of power, as it must, EVs in Indianapolis are expected to get even cleaner over time.

For those city dwellers who want to buy an electric car for themselves but don't have access to a charging station at work or in their apartment or condo complex, the installation of EV charging stations may soon get easier in California. AB 2565, a bill introduced by Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi would ensure that a lease cannot unfairly restrict a tenant - a business or apartment dweller - from installing an EV charging station so long as the tenant pays for the station, installation, and upkeep. This kind of policy would allow more people eager to drive EVs to install the charging stations at home or access them at work or in public locations.

Whether it be car-sharing or ownership, electric cars are becoming more viable for urban Americans - but for many not fast enough. Tell us what you think of these programs or ones you’d like introduced in your own community.

May 20, 2014

Last Saturday, 5,000 Americans gathered in numbers large and small in 100 communities in 43 states across the nation for a National Day of Action to not only say No to the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, but to all dirty fuels.

Kansas City. Photo by Giselle Kim.

Three weeks ago, 5,000 citizens rallied in Washington, D.C., to urge the President Obama to reject KXL. This time people turned out in their own communities. Whether it's offshore drilling, seismic testing, mountaintop removal coal mining, dangerous tar sands pipelines, fracking, exporting liquid natural gas, or shipping crude by rail through our hometowns, we all have reason to be concerned -- for the health of our families and the health of the planet.

Auburn, Washington. Photo by Brian Gunn.

America is under an unprecedented assault from Big Oil today. So on May 17, Sierrans and activists with dozens of partner organizations took action against the continental and global threat of the Keystone XL pipeline, as well as the many other ways in which fossil fuels now threaten their communities.

A similar event known as Hands Across the Sand, also co-sponsored by the Sierra Club, started in 2010 when Americans from coast to coast joined Gulf Coast residents in expressing alarm and outrage at the impact of offshore oil on the Gulf of Mexico during the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster. Since then, as utilities have begun to move beyond coal, Big Oil has expanded from drilling in the Gulf to an unprecedented new assault on every region of America.

May 01, 2014

The SojournPristine jungle and indigenous culture have long been huge draws for me. So last fall, when my brother Nicholas -- a professional opera singer and avid world traveler -- and I decided to go to Ecuador, an Amazon adventure was at the top of our list. We chose the pristine and little-visited southeastern part of the country, territory of the Achuar indigenous people whom we hoped to visit.

Nicholas emailed Pachamama Alliance, an organization whose mission is to empower indigenous people of the Amazon rainforest to preserve their lands and culture, to inquire about visiting the area independently. Pachamama Alliance responded that we'd need permission from the Achuar to visit, and put us in touch with Jaime Vargas, President of the Achuar Nationality of Ecuador, to seek permission.

From Jaime and the Internet, we learned that Ecuador is planning to auction off millions of acres of the Amazon where the Achuar and other indigenous people live, for massive oil drilling. Jaime explained that the Achuar need help from the outside world to defeat the petroleros. He invited us to visit the Achuar to learn about their struggle and help spread the word.

We took a bus from Quito to Shell, Ecuador, then flew on a tiny prop plane to a remote village deep in the Amazon, where we met Jaime. The next day, we travelled up the Rio Pastaza in a dugout canoe to the village where he grew up.

Aaron Isherwood in dugout canoe on the Rio Pastaza

We spent the next ten days living with the Achuar. In every village we visited, the Achuar were united in their opposition to the oil drilling and angry at the government for not consulting them.

A Promise BetrayedEcuadorian President Rafael Correa campaigned on indigenous peoples' rights and rainforest protection; his proposed "debt for nature" swap and his speech to the U.N. Climate Summit inspired the world. So we weren't surprised to learn that the Achuar initially supported Correa. But now that his government is proposing to auction off their land to oil companies, they feel betrayed.

April 29, 2014

A criticism sometimes leveled at "environmentalists" is that we care more about trees than people. Perhaps we unwittingly reinforce this stereotype-we sometimes use images of burning globes to symbolize climate change and the consequences of fossil fuel development -- when in fact, for many climate and energy campaigns, working to protect human livelihoods and rights is a fundamental motivation.

Photo by Rae Breaux

Too often we fail to put faces to the individuals who suffer as a direct consequence of a society addicted to fossil fuels, and those who are bravely fighting corporations and sometimes even governments to protect their land, water, and communities.

Photo by Jim Dougherty

However, Reject and Protect was an inspiring weeklong event in which human faces took center stage. From April 22-27, farmers, ranchers, and members of tribal communities along the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline route, as well as First Nation representatives whose communities are being devastated by tar sands development in Canada, came to Washington, D.C., and set up an encampment on the National Mall.

Photo by Javier Sierra

Below, fourth-generation Nebraska rancher Ben Gotschall, who has been speaking out against the KXL pipeline for several years.

Photo by Mark Heffling

With the aim of showing the Obama administration the faces of people who would be affected by Keystone XL, the "Cowboy Indian Alliance" led a week of actions which included an opening ceremony with ranchers and tribal leaders on horseback, daily water ceremonies, and a march and ceremonial tipi gifting ceremony which was joined by thousands of people on Saturday April 26th.

Photo by Javier Sierra

The Sierra Club's Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska chapters and partners including Idle No More held solidarity events that same day in Oklahoma City and Lincoln, Nebraska, featuring landowner and tribal representatives who are playing leadership roles in the fight against Keystone XL.

Photos by Bora Chung (left) and Javier Sierra (right)

This week also marked a Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe Bundle spiritual encampment in Green Grass, South Dakota, where Native nations came together to pray for communities living at the source of tar sands development.

Imagine five, ten, twenty trains, 100-cars long, moving through your neighborhood each week, bringing constant rattling and diesel fumes into your home. A small obstacle in the tracks might cause a derailment, overturning cars and spilling toxic crude into yards and the local water supply. Those train cars could even explode, which would almost instantaneously decimate your neighborhood.

No community should have to experience these problems, but they are the reality for hundreds of towns across North America, as the oil industry sends ever more fracked oil down outdated and overburdened rail lines. As a result, loss of life and property and environmental devastation from catastrophic rail accidents have become an expected "cost of business" throughout North America.

As prodigious quantities of volatile crude oil comes out of the ground in North Dakota, other parts of the Midwest, and the Rocky Mountains, railroads are rapidly becoming the principal mode of transporting this hazardous substance to coastal refining hubs, including the San Francisco Bay Area. In the past five years, the amount of oil transported by rail has skyrocketed from 9,500 carloads in 2008 to 400,000 carloads in 2013. In 2013 alone, Northern California experienced a 50 percent increase in transport of crude-by-rail.

Unfortunately, improvements to our nation's aging rail infrastructure have not kept pace with this oil boom on the railroads. In 2013 alone, more oil spilled from rail cars than in the past four decades combined. The National Transportation Safety Board has weighed in, warning that our existing rail infrastructure is woefully inadequate to the task of transporting highly volatile fracked crude, and our existing safety regulations do not protect communities along these rail routes. The most tragic example: a July 2013 derailment and train explosion in Lac Megantic, Quebec (pictured above), that took the lives of 47 people and leveled 40 buildings.

March 21, 2014

We believe the Keystone XL pipeline is a bad idea for many reasons. One is that in order to clear the path for the pipeline, people's land is being taken away in six states in the name of eminent domain, all the way from Canada to the Gulf Coast. This pipeline will in no way benefit the masses; it's the Big Oil corporations who will benefit.

This pipeline would cross over aquifers that supply drinking water to millions of people, as well as about 30 percent of the ground water used for irrigation in the United States. In Texas, our chief concern is that we will be the ones receiving the tar sands crude, which is heavy in sulfur, benzene -- a known carcinogen -- and heavy metals. Levels of toxic emissions will definitely increase, and the low-income communities of color near the refineries in Port Arthur and Houston will bear the brunt of the pollution. Air pollution from the Port Arthur refineries is already taking a toll on public health in the surrounding community, including high rates of asthma, bronchitis, and other respiratory ailments.

The oil industry is also likely to have more many more shutdown incidents if Keystone XL is built because of the nature of tar sands crude -- it's so heavy and viscous. Two companies in Texas, Valero and Motiva, are already receiving some tar sands crude by rail. But if the pipeline is built it will be pumped in constantly -- 300,000 barrels per day -- to Port Arthur and Houston.

In Port Arthur we already have a disproportionate amount of toxics in the environment, and the KXL pipeline will only add insult to injury. Too many of our residents here suffer from cancer. Too many of our kids are dealing with respiratory problems. One out of every five households has a child or someone in the household who needs to use a nebulizer or take breathing treatments before they go to bed at night or before they go to school. That's not right.

We represent the area of least resistance to the oil companies because we're a low-income community of color. It's the same deal in the Houston area -- that branch of the pipeline would bring tar sands crude to refineries in a low-income community in Deer Park, just east of Houston. Environmental justice organizer Juan Paras has been doing the same kind of work in Deer Park that I'm doing in Port Arthur, working with T.E.J.A.S. (Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Services).

We've partnered with Earthjustice, working closely with them in Washington, D.C., and advocating on a national level about why Keystone XL is not good for our community -- or any community. Last year I marched with Bill McKibben, the co-founder of 350.org, and Michael Brune, the Sierra Club's executive director, in the Forward on Climate march, the biggest mass march in the history of the environmental justice movement. Nearly 50,000 people from around the country converged on the national mall in Washington to tell President Obama that this is a national movement, and we don't need Keystone XL.

On MSNBC recently, I spoke about the devastating health impacts on communities near refineries, and the fact that Keystone XL will not create a significant number of new jobs. Construction companies say building the pipeline will create jobs, but only about 300, and they'd all be temporary. Then there's the fact that the refined oil from tar sands crude is designed to be shipped overseas, not consumed domestically, so it won't help us become more energy independent. But our community in Port Arthur, and the people living near the Deer Park refineries in Houston, will have to bear the brunt of the health consequences.

For the damage it will cause to human health alone, it's just not worth it to build this pipeline -- and that's just one of the many reasons President Obama should deny the permit to build Keystone XL. Tar sands crude is the dirtiest form of oil there is. We need to create clean-energy jobs, not jobs that will tie us to a fossil fuel economy.

There's so much opportunity if we put ourselves on a path to clean energy. The race is on to develop renewable energy, build solar panels and solar arrays, build wind turbines and wind farms. Why can't we focus on renewables instead of scraping the bottom of the barrel to get a dirty, polluting form of crude oil that destroys the land and harms public health? It's time that we did more to help heal and clean up overburdened communities instead of bringing more toxic materials to those areas. Enough is enough.

February 20, 2014

Last week more than 1,300 business, labor, environmental, and civic leaders -- including some 100 Sierra Club staff, volunteers, speakers, and community partners -- took part in the seventh annual Good Jobs, Green Jobs Conference in Washington, D.C.

The conference, whose motto is, "Where Jobs and the Environment Meet," focused on repairing the infrastructure Americans rely on every day -- our water systems, electrical grid, transit, road, pipelines, and schools -- with an eye toward environmental sustainability and family-sustaining jobs that cannot be outsourced.

The Sierra Club is one of the primary sponsors of the conference, along with the BlueGreen Alliance, the United Steelworkers (USW), and Alcoa.

Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune (below) was among the keynote speakers on the conference's opening day. "We need to recreate our economy with clean energy that takes the place of fossil fuels," Brune said. "Everybody here knows it’s going to be a challenge to do that. But we must. The ultimate rewards for all of humanity when we achieve that goal will be greater than we can imagine. The Sierra Club is 100 percent committed to creating an economy that is 100 percent powered with clean energy."

BlueGreen Alliance Executive Director David Foster (below), who emceed the conference, said that "to some of our critics, 'good jobs, green jobs' is a quaint notion; that you can have both good jobs and a clean environment. But you can't solve a 21st-century problem like climate change with the 19th-century infrastructure that caused it. The theme of this year's conference -- Protect, Produce, Prosper -- sums it all up: We can create all the jobs we need and fix our environmental problems by repairing America."

A secondary theme that ran through the conference was the growing income disparity between the very wealthy and all other Americans, and how the middle class will benefit from the creation of good, green jobs. "One thing 20th-century America taught the world is that a lot of wealth in a few hands is never going to be as productive as a lot of wealth in a lot of hands," Foster said.

Gerard recalled that when the USW and the Sierra Club joined forces to create the BlueGreen Alliance seven years ago, their shared concerns were carbon emissions, chemical safety, and trade. "Then you come back seven years later and you see what we've done," he said. "The membership of the affiliate organizations in the BlueGreen Alliance represents 14 million Americans. Imagine what we could do to advance our agenda if we mobilized that membership."

Trumka (below) followed, saying that the biggest challenges facing our society are climate change and restoring economic prosperity. "I'm here on behalf of the labor movement to tell you we remain committed to stopping runaway climate change," he said. "There is no other path for our children and grandchildren. We must keep up the fight for generations to come. The people who want to solve climate change must engage with the people whose jobs are at stake. The challenge of climate change can only be solved when we find a formula of clean energy that meets every day people's needs."